The Swordless One
Hidden away, Cheong Ho-wi suppressed his breathing, wringing true qi from the air left in his lungs and slowly circulating it through his entire body.
Enough true qi to launch an ambush — yet not enough to be caught by the enemies' search for presence.
"……"
If he waited like this, the right moment for the ambush would come.
The First Young Master had said so.
And the right moment for an ambush was —
The moment the First Young Master commanded.
"……!"
Cheong Ho-wi burst from the wardrobe and slammed a palm strike straight into the enemy at the front.
Despite the ambush, true to the infamous reputation of Tanrang's members, the man succeeded in defending and minimized the damage. It was a scene that revealed the kind of training they endured, the hells they had walked through.
"Keuk!"
Even so, he smashed through the fourth-floor corridor railing and fell.
When is the right moment for an ambush?
"……"
"……"
At least for the present Yeon So-hyeon and the Tanrang Chief, it was a meaningless phrase. Right now, they were each targeting every part of the other's body.
But —
When Yeon So-hyeon sent the sound transmission, the hidden gallant warriors of the Spring of Luoyang began ambushing the enemies all at once.
"Keuk!"
And in that brief instant when one of Tanrang's hunting dogs began to fall after punching through the fourth-floor railing —
"……!"
The crouching Tanrang Chief completed every preparation for a single strike. The opening of combat that began from a perfect natural state was the situation he preferred above all. Whether he chose a crushing offense or a defense, the natural state always let him move far more swiftly than his opponent — a full step faster.
Tak!
The toes of the subordinate who had fallen from the fourth floor touched the ground. The moment until those toes met the floor stretched for the Tanrang Chief as if it would never end — beyond an instant, piercing through a mere breath of time, reaching the span of a blink.
As the subordinate's foot touched the floor, before the eyelids that had noticed something could even blink once, the Tanrang Chief's long blade was already leaving its scabbard.
Chiiiik—!
As the long blade's edge left the scabbard, it screamed as if burning the air itself. The white-hot blade body convulsed wildly like a marlin thrashing on a harpoon. The Tanrang hunting dog who realized he was inside the trajectory of that merciless draw widened his eyes.
The Chief was ignoring him — choosing both him and the First Young Master behind as targets of the attack.
"……!"
Those wide eyes met the Chief's gaze.
"……"
As always, emotionless. Empty eyes from which no thought could be read — the bloodless, tearless gaze of the Chief he knew so well.
So this is a hunting dog's life—
In that brief moment, the Tanrang hunting dog who had settled his life was about to close his eyes.
At that instant — before the blade body even touched him — his body burst as if smashed to pieces.
Strong doubt flooded the Tanrang Chief's empty eyes.
How—?!
Through the subordinate's body that shattered and scattered, the blood-soaked form of the First Young Master was already charging toward him.
Faster reaction than even the natural state—?!
Before his astonishment could finish, the single palm Yeon So-hyeon had extended struck his chest hard.
Seventy-Two Ultimate Arts
Kwaang—!
Before the enormous sound that made everyone inside the building flinch could fully ring out, Yeon So-hyeon gathered both hands and thrust out dual palms.
Seventy-Two Ultimate Arts
Before that force fully pierced the Chief's body, Yeon So-hyeon's elbow drove into his solar plexus —
Seventy-Two Ultimate Arts · Hundred Paths of Graceful Steel
From the lowered posture used for the elbow, the raised fist struck the philtrum — Bodhidharma's Eighteen Hands. Both knife-hands struck the sides of his head like striking a bell — Shaolin Five Fists. And before the Chief's shaken brain could feel dizziness, Yeon So-hyeon's fists battered his entire body — Arhat Divine Fist.
"Kahak?!"
When the Chief's lungs twisted and he involuntarily screamed as the air was driven out of him —
Seventy-Two Ultimate Arts · One-Combination Ending Kick
Yeon So-hyeon's form spun nimbly once through the air and kicked him in the chest.
Ppeong—!
With a sound like a cannon firing, the Chief's body crumpled and flew, vanishing through a wall.
The linked technique Yeon So-hyeon had personally woven and refined from Shaolin's Seventy-Two Ultimate Arts.
"Did you not claim you knew this First Young Master uses Shaolin martial arts?"
Landing lightly on the floor, Yeon So-hyeon steadied his roughened breathing and shrugged his shoulders.
"For all that, your response was pathetic."
Was the shock of their Chief being so thoroughly beaten so great?
"……?!"
The adjutant's sword, which had been exchanging blade strikes with Jeong-a, wavered for the briefest moment.
And Jeong-a's Dragon Eyes did not permit even that briefest moment of wavering in her opponent.
Chuhwak!
The adjutant's head flew through the air. The headless torso spun half a turn in place and collapsed.
"I have carried out Master's command."
"Well done."
The right moment for an ambush is the moment when one can fully choose that point in time oneself. And Yeon So-hyeon had created that point himself.
The order he had given to Cheong Ho-wi and the other gallant warriors of the Spring of Luoyang —
If the Tanrang Chief had begun preparing his draw from the moment his subordinate started falling after punching through the fourth-floor railing, Yeon So-hyeon had finished preparing at the same instant he issued the order.
And that difference secured Yeon So-hyeon a perfect advantage in the first exchange of moves against the Tanrang Chief who had achieved a completed natural state. It also brought complete victory in an engagement with an opponent capable of creating troublesome variables.
"Shameless fellow."
Yeon So-hyeon spoke toward the hole punched through the wall.
"I know full well you are not yet dead. How long do you intend to settle your internal injuries and breathing?"
As he spoke, the plain cloth of Yeon So-hyeon's chest was tattered. Even amid the merciless continuous strikes, the Tanrang Chief had landed blade hits on Yeon So-hyeon's chest — three times, no less. Had Yeon So-hyeon not appropriately used his black silk thread outer robe, he would by now have been streaming three lines of blood from his chest.
That was because the man had crossed the wall into the true superhuman realm. The power of those who could be called masters, which none could deny.
"…Strong, First Young Master."
The Tanrang Chief staggered out from the hole and spat on the floor. It was too thick to be saliva. Together with pitch-black dead blood, fragments of internal organs splattered on the ground.
"Absurd."
Having pulled out the remnants of his eyeball that had burst and run from Yeon So-hyeon's dark force when his head was struck, he spoke.
"That was Shaolin martial arts, yet it was also not Shaolin martial arts."
In anticipation of engagement with Yeon So-hyeon, he had thoroughly reviewed all of Shaolin's martial arts once more before the operation. Accessing the Martial Arts Academy of the Sword Family would originally have been impossible given his status — but with the power of the Third Young Master's military department, it had been possible. Yet all that preparation was useless. Because the martial arts Yeon So-hyeon used were of Shaolin, yet not entirely of Shaolin.
"Of course. Because they are martial arts this First Young Master has personally refined."
The Tanrang Chief briefly forgot what to say.
"……"
Though Yeon So-hyeon spoke as if it were nothing, even by the assessment of a man who had crossed the wall, every Shaolin technique Yeon So-hyeon had employed retained only its bare foundation. The forms and profound principles were all different from the originals.
"…You refined the martial arts yourself?"
Was refinement of this level not something possible only for those who would be called Grandmasters in history?
"How can you be so strong at that age?"
Moreover, that was not all. It was not that he had bought time to settle his internal injuries and breathing inside the hole in the wall. Yeon So-hyeon had knowingly refrained from pressing the pursuit strike.
The First Young Master is making full use of time right now.
Time was on the First Young Master's side. Even at this very moment, his subordinates were under attack on each floor.
[Casualties occurring!]
[Back to back! Don't let the enemy take your rear!]
They were not simply taking the blows thanks to experience and training. But neither were the gallant warriors of such low level that they could cleanly reorganize and counterattack after suffering an ambush.
If I had gone down to the Underground Great Waterway myself…
By now there would have been piles of gallant warriors dead by his hand. From the start, the First Young Master had deliberately lured the Chief's direct unit — including himself — to this place with blatant intent. From the moment he himself manifested the natural state, the First Young Master had devised a means to reverse that confidence. Even at this very moment, the First Young Master knew all too well that the fleeing gallant warriors of the Spring of Luoyang were drawing farther away. Against a man whose edge had already been blunted and who could not display his full ability, he was leisurely making use of time.
"Just what…"
This was not merely a matter of martial arts level. Absurdly broad vision. Absurdly deep schemes. It was a problem prior to martial arts level itself.
"What is your true identity—"
The hem of Yeon So-hyeon's black silk thread outer robe fluttered. The hidden weapons the Tanrang Chief had stealthily projected while speaking to induce carelessness bounced off the black silk thread outer robe.
"An interesting method."
Even the irregular sword qi that followed — the long blade bending this way and that — Yeon So-hyeon had avoided them all as he spoke. As if seeing through everything.
The First Young Master of the Luoyang Sword Family. The Sword Lord's first son showed him a twisted smile.
"Try more."
Though the First Young Master was clearly shorter compared to the Tanrang Chief himself, for some reason it felt as if that boy was looking down on him.
"Those strange and wondrous methods Tanrang is said to possess are not even in our family's Martial Arts Academy, you see."
Yeon So-hyeon chuckled.
"So use them all. Without leaving a single one. Attempt them all."
Even as he laughed thus, his gaze never left the Tanrang Chief for a moment — as if he would take everything of him. Everything of Tanrang.
"……"
At that moment, Tanrang's hunting dogs who had silently dropped from the ceiling to ambush Yeon So-hyeon were torn apart in midair.
Hudududuk—!
A rain of blood and flesh fell. Thud. Thud-thud. Fragments of flesh split this way and that hit the floor.
"Fascinating."
Yeon So-hyeon stroked his chin.
"I could not even sense their presence. Have they built an entirely separate concealment system that diverges from the martial arts of the Central Plains?"
Yeon So-hyeon neither looked nor reacted. After all, not merely in the Central Plains — truly no one under heaven could land a true ambush on Yeon So-hyeon.
Because for the Golden-Eyed Witch, no blind spot existed.
"…Huu."
The sound of steadying breath came from behind Yeon So-hyeon. Yeon So-hyeon's chief maid, Jeong-a, shining her Dragon Eyes, shook the blood from her sword.
"Now then."
Yeon So-hyeon beckoned to the Tanrang Chief who was grinding his teeth.
"You have no choice either way."
He spoke as if looking straight into the Tanrang Chief's heart.
"You have no choice but to fight to the end here and cling to the slender hope of defeating me, do you not?"
The Tanrang Chief's blank expression shattered, and his face completely twisted.
"KRAAAAAAH—!"
He charged at Yeon So-hyeon, roaring a howl he could not remember how long it had been since he last uttered in his life.
After this, the name Mugeomza will resound through the world with a meaning entirely different from before.
That was the Tanrang Chief's last thought that he could still form with any logic.